Saturday, November 15, 2008

Our Roomba died

Today is rather a sad day, robotically speaking.

Our Roomba was never the same the fourth time it was dropped on its head. We blame Adrian for this latter catastrophe - a few weeks ago he lifted it up by its removable dust box and the machine 'fell out'. I really should have explained to him about the Roomba's handle.

Afterwards, it often refused to start despite much pressing of the power button, and its motions were erratic. Today it started to make a weird grinding noise, and then stopped vacuuming altogether.

Clare decided to take it apart (pictured)

Inside was a mess of dust, which had worked its way into all parts of the interior. This was the Roomba 2 variant, a few years old now and not really designed for home maintenance.

We cleaned it up and put it back together again - after a fashion - but although it did start up again, none of its fundamental problems had been solved. It sort of squeaked, and then died.